David Meren

David Meren has taught Canadian and Quebec international history at Université de Montréal since 2011. His objective is to engage with cultural history, social history and postcolonial studies to obtain and promote a deeper understanding of the history of Canada and Quebec in the world, as well as the ways in which their international activities – governmental and non-governmental – have been shaped by the lived experiences of the peoples living in the northern half of North America. He uses international history to better understand Canada and Quebec as projects of rule, along with situating them and their populations in transnational currents. His efforts to bring to light the question of ‘empire’ in Canadian and Quebec international history informed his first book, With Friends Like These: Entangled Nationalisms and the Canada-Québec-France Triangle, 1944-1970 (UBC Press, 2012), which situates a complex triangular dynamic into the history of globalization. This effort also informs his exploration of the history of settler colonialism in Canada and Quebec, consistent with his belief that it is impossible to properly understand Canadian and Quebec international history without taking into account the complex history of relations between Indigenous peoples and settlers. To this end, his ongoing research project examines the entangled history of settler colonialism and Canadian international aid efforts in the decades after 1945.